Social Capital [II]

Exercise for the Research MasterMultivariate Statistics

W. M. van der VeldUniversity of Amsterdam

Quantitative Methods in The Social Sciences 2

Goal of the ‘groups work’

• Formulate a research question• Develop a (testable) theory• Develop measurement instruments

– part I - Two types of concepts– Part II - Two types of constructs

• Data for the test - European Social Survey

• Analyze the data• Presentation of research results

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Two types of concepts

• Social Trust– It is the core of social capital, measures the

degree to which you trust other people.

• There are many questions that might capture the concept of social trust. A distinction should be made for concepts– by intuition, or

– by postulation.

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Two types of concepts

• Concepts by intuition are ‘simple’ concepts:– The concept is immediately clear from the

wording of the survey question(s).

• Concepts by postulation are ‘complex’ concepts:– The concept not necessarily clear from the

wording of the survey questions.– Concepts by postulation are also called

constructs.

• An illustration

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Two types of concepts

• Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?

• Would this be ‘by intuition’ or ‘by postulation’? – By intuition;– However there is catch!

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Two types of concepts• Some people say that social trust is an attitude, and

attitudinal measures should contain several components:– An affective component,– A cognitive component, and – A behavioral component.

• Therefore social trust could also be measured with:– Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be

trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?

• [affective, trust & behavioral, be careful]– Do you think that most people would try to take advantage

of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair?• [cognitive, take advantage & cognitive, be fair]

– Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are mostly looking out for themselves?

• [cognitive, be helpful & cognitive, looking out]

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Two types of concepts

• So, we have two possible measurement instruments for social trust:

• Simple(?)– Most people can be trusted, or you can't be too

careful.

• Complex (Construct)– Most people can be trusted, or you can't be too

careful.– Most people try to take advantage of you, or try to

be fair.– Most of the time people are helpful, or mostly

looking out for themselves.

Two types of constructs

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Two types of constructs

• I make a distinction between two types of constructs:– By definition, and– By derivation.

• Note that this is different from the distinction between concepts by definition and by postulation. Here we are discussing variables that are categorized: concepts by postulation (or constructs).

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Two types of constructs

• Construct by definition. For example:– A family’s “living space” is the sum of– the surface area of all rooms in a house.– The surface areas are expressed in the same

quantity (m2), therefore we can just add and the result is also in that quantity.

• These constructs don’t need any further statistical analysis, to show that they form one construct/are uni-dimensional.

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Two types of constructs

• Construct by derivation. For example:– Political efficacy (int) is the sum of

• How difficult or easy do you find it to make your mind up about political issues?

• How often does politics seem so complicated that you can’t really understand what is going on?

• Do you think that you could take an active role in a group involved with political issues?

– Note that the quantities are all different,– so in what quantity is the sum expressed?

• Normally a statistical analysis is used to ‘show’ that the questions measure one construct/are uni-dimensional.

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Two types of constructs

• There is also a difference between these two types of constructs from a modeling point of view.

Living space

Room (m2)

Kitchen

(m2)

Bedroom

(m2)

Internal Political Efficacy

Politics too

complex

Political issues

complex

Able to participate

In politics

Data for the testEuropean Social Survey

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The European Social Survey

• Normally you would– develop measurement instruments;– draw a sample; and– start collecting the data.

• More than normally, you would– not have any money to engage in such a

project.

• Thus we use second hand data.• It requires some knowledge of the studies

available make a fruitful choice for a data set.

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The European Social Survey• Here we use data from the European Social

Survey.• The European Social Survey (the ESS) is an

academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behavior patterns of its diverse populations. Now in its third round, the survey covers over 20 nations and employs the most rigorous methodologies. It is funded via the European Commission's 5th and 6th Framework Programmes, the European Science Foundation and national funding bodies in each country.

• http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/

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The European Social Survey• We will work with the round 1 data from 2002. This round

contains measures of:A1-A10 Media; social trust

B1 – B50 Politics, including: political interest, efficacy, trust, electoral and other forms of participation, party allegiance, socio-political evaluations/orientations, multi-level governance

C1 – C28 Subjective well-being and social exclusion; religion; perceived discrimination; national and ethnic identity

D1 – D58

Immigration and asylum issues, including: attitudes, perceptions, policy preferences and knowledge

E1 – E43 Citizen involvement: including organizational membership, family and friendship bonds, citizenship values, working environment

F1 – F65 Socio-demographic profile, including: Household composition, sex, age, type of area, Education & occupation details of respondent, partner, parents, union membership, household income, marital status

Section G

Human values scale

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The European Social Survey

• The source questionnaires can be found on my website.

• The drop-off questionnaire contains measures of some psychological traits.

• The following data files are available:– All (renamed) = ‘ESS-Round1-V51

[Renamed].sav’– Finland = ‘ESS-Finland.sav’– Great-Britain = ‘ESS-GB.sav’– Netherlands = ‘ESS-Netherlands.sav’– Poland = ‘ESS-Poland.sav’

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The European Social Survey• Because the link of the variable names and survey questions is

unclear, I made a Link between survey questions and Variables (Adobe Acrobat)

• When you are searching for some variable; search the file using a keyword.

Question

Varname

Description

C4 sclact Take part in social activities compared to others of same age

C5 crmvct Respondent or household member victim of burglary/assault last 5 years

C6 aesfdrk Feeling of safety of walking alone in local area after dark

C7 health Subjective general health

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Assignment

• You should have listed the questions that measure the variables/constructs in your study.

• Now mark which variables are constructs.• Explore the data with PCA. • And for constructs by definition you can

use PCA to compute component scores of the constructs.

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Notes

• Keep in mind that it is not possible to be perfect, i.e.– You might change your model during the course.– You might add or delete variables during the course.

• Next week I will present an example of how to analyze data with LISREL.